which a goal, a race linked to military interest, the race linked to political and military, christie, but also linked to many financial adventure full of hardships, dangers, death. 3 years that would change the world for ever. let jones journey around the world. september 7th on dw. ah ah ah ah ah, the effects of climate change are already painfully apparent and while environmental protection is now topping some policy agendas,

huge challenges remain in this edition of made will look at some of the problems and solutions for our plan us. among the places will take you is the marmen nor lagoon in spain, where agricultural practices are destroying marine life. also coming up how a shortage of fertilizer is leading to some promising innovations in the united states. the complicated politics and environmental impact of deep sea mining and how to create diamonds out of thin air. i'm kate ferguson. thanks for joining me. for millennia human activity has been leaving its mark on the environments. in ancient rome, woodland was cleared for the construction of boats and bridges, but even then there were some voiced concerns. the philosopher seneca is said to have complained that the construction of villas was destroying the beauty of coast lines. fast forward to the middle ages when the development of mercury mining led

to the contamination of surrounding waters. later still in 1713 hands called upon cala beds, wrote a treatise on the need for sustainable forestry. 2 centuries later, air pollution in london gave rise to the term mark a combination of the words, smoke and fog. in recent decades, organizations like greenpeace, have worked to hold the culprits of environmental destruction to occur. in our next report, we'll look at how industrial farming in spain is contributing to the demise of marine life ah, shallow waters, fine, sandy beaches, and plenty of sunshine. the mom and all on spain's mediterranean coast is the largest salt water boone in europe. not only is it a vacation paradise, it also has a unique ecosystem but the

point being protected, this body of water is rapidly becoming a death flow in mid summer last year. thousands of dead fish, crabs, and other marine animals washed ashore. and it appears to be happening again, many in spain or shocked. the big question is, why is the mom in or dying? pager lou ango has seen the disaster play out 1st. for lemma, i think of every morning we found hundreds of fish with their white bellies floating upwards a theory why it was a scene of despair just horrible, but they were under this god made you cry. seeing the ecosystem in that state. them i go with them is up on the furnace. we head out on to the mom and all the lagoon is separate from the mediterranean. it has a highest salt content and forms its own biotech. lorenzo is on the

lookout for what local school this of have added the green c it's caused by the runtime grace of o g e in the water. the more algae, the less oxygen. the reason the water is a high risk that thousands of green animals will suffocate again this summer. let me tell you that most over a main problem is the fertilizers. let keep pouring into the mar, may know that they are killing the ecosystem. we urgently need to solve this problem based on what that is in for and the only way of doing that is by reforming agriculture. a got all gumbo, elaborate with united eagle up fruit and vegetable plantations, have taken home around the mom and all the industry is worth millions.

agriculture in lithia is a huge, high output enterprise. it's the regions biggest economic sector critic said, now what's causing the must die off in the lagoon way, but i agree businesses a passing the buck for a hamp law air last one is that the residential areas dumped their waste water into the marmen or they bought out a la while at them in time, let me know i'm 100 percent certain that our agriculture as it is now, doesn't pollute anything, cannot fit that everything is measured precisely to avoid contamination or not. i mean, ah, but the reality in this extremely dry region, often looks very different. arrayed on an agricultural farm and covers an illegal desalination plant. something that's not uncommon here. the water is used to the irrigation, but the toxic by products are disposed of in the mom and all. in addition,

thousands of illegal beat wells, i used by farmers to irrigate around 8000 hector's of crop plant. the public prosecutor's office is investigating 40 companies and private individuals, but for far too long, authorities and politicians have turned a blind eye, says environmentalist page lorenzo. for example, it's been known for years that millions of tons of nitrate flow through this canal directly into the mom. and i get really agricultural industry here, ignores the environmental consequences. hidden. it's focuses on maximizing profits . well, take no responsibility for the waste about treating the moment, nor like a sewer laga. big supermarket chains across europe by tons of fruits and vegetables from the more c a region. or these businesses

profiting off the back of the environment. our requests for an interview were declined in a written statement. german supermarket ali said that all if spanish suppliers have to meet high standards that the random checks but that they otherwise rely on the countries own legal framework. this doesn't wash with agricultural expert. i'm on nevada, he says to farming lobby, and marcia is so powerful that hardly any one is afraid of police or the authorities. and that alleys supposedly high standards, are a foss, maryland little bit, if you can, and the big food chains dominate the market. holla, they own more than 95 percent, a normal bargain, but they pay next to nothing, but they try to get everything cheaper. even buy one sent to pull them out. sometimes they pay the corners, nothing weaknesses, tunnel by aligning. so farmers produce gets worse and worse because they can't

afford to improve anything. that is all about one thing that being cheap or get stuck in this one i meant to get it bought up the mom, i know it's likely a victim of this business model. in the summer time cleaners are deployed to rid the beaches of audi, but environmental if say, the effect is purely cosmetic pager lou ingo is afraid that the mom and all is in such a poor state that soon it may be beyond rescue. the war in ukraine has intensified existing pressures on the global food supply. rising gas prices have led to a decline in fertilizer production, putting more strain on the agricultural industry. you can see the trend clearly here since july of 2019 the price of di ammonium phosphate, that's the world's most widely used phosphorus. fertilizer has more than tripled,

but there are a solutions in the united states. entrepreneurs are coming up with alternative cleaner ways to fresh lies the file. ah, you may think farmers in the united states should be as happy as can be right now. after all, prices for their products are up way up. wheat, corn, soybeans tanks, milk, chicken, and kettle, crop farmers, and cattle ranchers get maximum returns this year, financially speaking and had a record here last year and the year before in yield out. so what could possibly be wrong? let's ask an expert chad heart, iowa state university professor of economics and agriculture economics. this year will be tough because of the supply chain challenges and also with the weather conditions that we're thinking. oh,

same thing as i'm looking down at south america. if you think about the sort of the recipe of what we're seeing in agriculture production over the last year or 2 years, ah, we seen significant droughts in both south american here and in the united states of definitely the supply chain challenges are hitting across the board the most problematic supply chain issue for us farmers, the severe shortage of fertilizers and a lot of the fertilizer that the globe depends upon comes from russia, bella, ruse, places that you know least the u. s. in europe will no longer buy from. so that limits the supply of fertilizer around the world that's creating those supply chain challenges for producers. we're meeting one of those producers, iowa crop farm, or den. hence, he's working roughly $700.00 acres total. this is considered a small for, however,

is main challenge this year. yes. the fertilizer shortage. definitely volatile times right now. so i would say the, the supply issues are, is concerning as the price issue. but those things are very much lengthy as the shortage of fertilizer. definitely creates more demand for and, and drives that price up. the big concern is, you know, moving forward in the coming years. is there going to be as, as the situation or a time in which it's not just about pain on the high price, but physically getting the fertilizer that, that scares a lot of us. then just putting soybeans down, now he has dedicated $300.00 acres for soybeans this year. a while ago he finished planting corn on 400. for that he partially used a new product in new and different kind of high tech fertilize. they'll use traditional, the types of traditional fertilizers that we've been utilizing for

a long time. i as well as a synthetic nitrogen, but 3 years ago started utilizing a violent biology and of the biological microbes, microwaves, as fertilizers from pivot bio. it started off in berkeley telephone. the company's products are hot commodity for farmers like den hansen, for all the farmers in iowa and across the nation. the massive problems us farmers face in terms of getting their hands on enough, affordable traditional fertilizers have also help this start up in san francisco to tricity. these 3 friends and fellow stanford university students found the company in 2018. they hoped to create an alternative to industrial synthetic fertilizers,

their goal, invent and environmentally friendlier clean energy using more efficient and reliable away to fertilize cross. here is what they came up with. the way that sir nature does it is lightning strikes the ground and we have the nitrogen, the air gets fixed into knox effectively. and the rain captures that knocks as nitrates and rains out of the field. and then what happens then is the grass grows greener. the next couple days after we've containerized that process, i put the lightning in a bottle effectively and connected to solar energy to power it. i can produce those nitrates that go out of the field. sounds easy enough, but of course it's not. joshua niko and j spend years perfecting their technology and process. now they think they're ready to be competitive. we're making tons of pounds of fertilizer today, with our relatively small team, and we're ceiling of that process rapidly. we want to be making tons of fertilizing

next year. at which point we'll be ready to implement our 1st like commercial scale system, michael hastens runs. his family medium, large farm, and 3rd generation this year, fertilizing his crops was a major challenge for him also. so he went back to utilizing the oldest fertilizer of the more maybe in my father's or my grandfather's generation manure was, was a waste product. you know, when your livestock producers you just wanted to get rid of it. you just go dump it somewhere. well, in that slowly transition to people realize what an asset that was to now it's a highly sought after asset. it's even goes to as far where people will put up livestock facilities, whether be hogs or chickens or turkeys or cattle. just for the only purpose of the manure they're going to receive from that. so yeah, it's, it's, it's a big commodity these days. ah, and this is where

a percent chris comes in. he calls himself a hobby farm. he's the owner of what is called a small gentleman for buck send. quist is also an for law in manure, in dung cove or whatever else one wants to call natural fertilizer products. i as my business name and i grew up by around here in woodbine island. and i started business at salesman newer these days sank. was, has his whole family working, answering calls from farmers from all over the country, all asking for his all natural, fertilize. and in hands, mixture of regular cow pool with other neutral ingredients, like line, city malls and chips. i think what's, what's happening right now is with this crisis that we're having, it's an a catapult dis industry. it's going to be anybody that has any sort of renewable sustainable technology is gonna be gang busters. nearly anybody working

in our culture, including local and state governments, and most experts in the u. s. hope, apes and chris is right. all agree and extended even worse. fertilizer crisis is long to heard everybody all over the gas and oil are certainly not the only resources companies are interested in tapping in recent times has been an increasing interest in mining the ocean floor, lucrative deposits to be fine. there include cobalt a key component of batteries and magnets, manganese nodules, side of which copper nickel and platinum can be extracted are also in high demand for their use in high tech equipment. and that's not all massive, so fight deposits of silver is ink and gold are also targets for mining. the economic potential of the ocean bed is huge. boss as reporter emily lester discovered. so is the environmental cost deep down at the bottom of the ocean, a secret race is going on. a race between private companies rushing to secure

access to valuable minerals. mining the ocean floors is potentially a multi $1000000000.00 business. but some think we need to turn our attention to the planet, not profit. what on earth is going on at the bottom of the ocean? and is it too late to stop it? let's dive in. millions of tons of valuable minerals like manganese, copper, cobalt and nickel, currently sit undisturbed at the bottom of the sea. they're valuable because they're used in electric batteries and our personal devices and companies argue will need them if we plan to move away from our dependence on fossil fuels. but not everyone thinks drilling into the ocean floor is a great idea. scientists are worried that sucking up nodules will disturb habitats

and the organisms that live within them. they're worried that the pollution will disrupt the ability for sea life to feed, hunt and mate, and could eventually lead to a mass extinction of species. and they believe the consequences of drilling one area was go far and wide. so are these companies even allowed to drill? well, this is where the whole thing gets really interesting. perhaps yet year of the bad, i was attractive to more actors than i had sent at least an idea that we knew less about the environmental impacts and as opposed to what the situation is. now back in the 19 seventy's and eighty's, the u. n. recognized the ocean would eventually attract the attention of prospectors. so it drafted a document called the un convention on the law of the c, which gave guidance on how countries should behave when it came down to the part of

the deep sea that sat outside national jurisdiction. and it gave this area a name very imaginatively. it called it the area in includes large areas of the pacific atlantic in indian oceans. the convention was ratified by a number of countries in 1982 who all agreed that the area would be considered the common heritage of all of human kind. this means that technically it belongs to everyone a little over a decade later, an organization called the international seaman authority was created to organize, regulate, and control mineral related activities in the area. they wanted to make sure that any future profit made from mining was shared. but a smaller group, the legal and technical commission of the i say, is the one who mixed the final decision when it comes to approving mining

applications. members state submit an application on behalf of their government. but there's a loophole in the convention that allows private companies to do this to oh, they don't increases another private acres by the companies. parsons can apply for a mighty contract to the ac, provided they have sponsorship from a member state. this is how a company registered in canada, a company that used to be known as deep green metals, and now goes by the metals company has been able to lay claim to areas in the pacific ocean. so at the moment the metals company he has quite a number off mining exploration contracts through different sponsoring sites and say, what we've seen is one company essentially gaining rights for a number preserved areas. in now root the metals company asked the i say,

to begin drafting regulations, so it can start commercial mining. the deadline is next year and mining could begin as soon as 2024. even if the regulations aren't fully flushed out. not only are the impacts on the environment, unclear, there are lots of other issues that need a closer look. what we do know is that the contractors must pay the, i say, $500000.00 for each exploration application. this revenue contribute significantly to the i, essays, operating budget. another worry is that the mining contractors are not subject to international law. companies like the metals company could be able to evade responsibility for any environmental damage they cause. so we, we obviously have in that scenario, the best that a private company can yes though many of said we should hold off on mining

until to impact is better understood. the head of the i a say has played down the criticisms. he's met regularly with mining executives and said the risk has been overstated. i don't see why we need to have this perceived pressure of the i see having to make revenue and inca on this perceived pressure to meet the deadline and things like that. you know, we, we shouldn't falls on that track because otherwise, if we allowed to happen, we're just going to make things a lot words, you know, you're in a whole stop again. you know, in order to really know, we may need a bit more time, time to set a comprehensive regulations time to understand the environmental impact and time to create balances of powers. so that the deep sea really does benefit all of human kind. diamonds may not be every girl's best friends, but they are still one of the most valuable materials in the world. conventional large scale, diamond mining is extremely damaging to the environment,

burning huge quantities of fuel and leaving pets. hundreds of meters deep in the grand butts. could there be another way of conjuring the precious stones? the porter offered gelati investigates me. hey, have you heard of this? you can make diamonds out of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. no joke. you can actually mine the sky. well at least then from great britain say, so then is this for real? the idea came about thinking about carbon capture and realize that we had to lock it into something permanent. and that led me to think of dimes as most part of the form of carbon transforming, send it into sparkling diamonds. so somehow, logical order h. ladies and gentlemen,

let's make some divers daily. it's your turn. how does it work? sure. we capture rain water. and we split it to make hydrogen, we, we don't need the oxygen, we capture c o 2. and we feed hydrogen and c o 2 into another machine that makes meet a but it's basically the gases that feed in that super high temperature. which then enables the carbon in the me painted drop out and form the crystalline structure ah, all. and in 2 weeks you die, moves are born diamonds are, can those of purity going to protect it? no but days. why should i do all this out to

me? to get one? diamond mining is really destructive process to the environment. the holes so big you can see them from orbit mining industry, digs 1100 tons of roll to make that one tiny stone. and that whole process in this enormous amount of c o 2 and pollutes the environment. okay, thanks for the listen. got it. so if i'm dreaming of having a diamond without damaging the environment, i just talked to my guy what and entertaining fi and flash. and that's all we have time for from this addition is made, it's been a pleasure helping you with us. remember, if you'd like to watch back any of the reports on today. so you can do that on d, w dot com slash mates until next time for me i'm the entire team is device

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and how we can all make a difference. knowledge grows through sharing, download it now for, for a vibrant to have it in the glistening place of longing. the mediterranean sea, it's waters connect people. culture is, ah, seen it almost wrong and to bill curry drift along with exploring modern lifestyles and mediterranean. where has history left its traces, meeting people hearing their dreams ready to meet this week on d w. ah

ah. this is d, w is live from by land. the palestinian president sparks outrage in germany accusing israel of committing 50 holocausts against his people. german chancellor laughed sholtes face is heavy criticism, but failing to respond quickly to the comments also on the program. ukrainian president.